The effect of perceptual training on the identification of a non‐native phoneme contrast and its relationship to the MMN auditory evoked potential

Abstract

The mismatch negativity (MMN) auditory evoked potential reflects the detection of minimal stimulus differences at a pre‐attentive level. It has been reported that the MMN reflects acoustic, rather than phonetic processing of speech stimuli. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of perceptual training on (1) the behavioral ability of native speakers of American English to label a pair of Hindi stop consonants, and (2) the presence or absence of the MMN. Hindi voiceless unaspirated stop consonants contrasted by dental and retroflexplace of articulation ([t̪ versus [Ṡ]) were used. Prior to training, the MMN was present in 4 of 12 listeners and labeling ability was poor. Ten perceptual training sessions resulted in significant improvement in labeling ability. There was some generalization to a different voicing contrast (voiced unaspirated Hindi stop consonants [d̪] versus [ḍ]). There was also a significant increase in the number of listeners demonstrating an MMN in response to both contrasts after training. The group of listeners who had MMN responses after training also had significantly higher change scores from pre‐test to post‐test on the behavioral task. These results suggest that the MMN may have utility as an objective indicator of learning.